Category: MLB (Page 141 of 448)

      Dodgers owner Frank McCourt still spending during divorce

      January 16, 2010 /

      Los Angeles Dodgers owner Frank McCourt has assured the team’s fans that his impending divorce with his wife, Jamie, won’t discourage offseason transactions.

      From the Los Angeles Times:

      “I talk to fans too,” McCourt said in his first interview with The Times since it became public that he and his wife and former club president, Jamie McCourt, planned to divorce. “They’re very excited about the team. They’re very supportive of what we’re doing.”

      McCourt declared the Dodgers are “headed in the right direction,” pointing to how they have reached the postseason in four of the last six seasons and settled on an organizational philosophy of building around a group of homegrown players.

      McCourt said that his team’s lack of activity in the free-agent market should not be interpreted as a sign that his team is facing financial difficulties as a result of his personal situation.

      “My divorce has no bearing on the club whatsoever,” he said.

      McCourt’s statements come on the heels of two important transactions. Yesterday both Dodgers center fielder Matt Kemp and pitcher Chad Billingsley avoided arbitration by signing contract extensions. Kemp will make $10.95 million over the next two years while Billingsley’s one-year deal is worth $3.85 million. Prior to the deals the Dodgers had only signed second baseman Jamey Carroll to a two-year, $3.85 contract this offseason.

      Dodgers fans are definitely skeptical about the entire situation. If Jamie McCourt gets what she wants, she’ll walk away with half of the the team’s worth, making spending increasingly difficult. With things as they are, I’m amazed the Dodgers got Kemp that cheap. He’s easily the best outfielder (both offensively and defensively) in the National League and is entering his prime. However, the Dodgers now have to work with Andre Ethier, Jonathan Broxton, James Loney, Russell Martin, George Sherrill, and Hong-Chi Kuo, whom all filed for arbitration on Friday. With this money tied up, I’m sure they’ll have to part with a couple of these players.


      Photo from fOTOGLIF

      MLB

      Bud Selig thinks the steroid era is over

      January 13, 2010 /

      After Mark McGwire came out Monday and admitted to taking steroids during his playing career, baseball commissioner Bud Selig felt the need to recently proclaim that the steroid era is over.

      From the New York Times:

      “The use of steroids and amphetamines amongst today’s players has greatly subsided and is virtually nonexistent, as our testing results have shown,” Selig said in a statement. “The so-called steroid era — a reference that is resented by the many players who played in that era and never touched the substances — is clearly a thing of the past, and Mark’s admission today is another step in the right direction.”

      Selig noted in the statement that in 2009, there were only two positive steroid tests in major league baseball out of 3,722 samples.

      If only two positive tests came out of 3,722 samples, then the testing is a joke or players are finding better ways to mask the performance-enhancing drugs. There’s just no way those figures are correct and Selig should be ashamed of himself for actually believing that.

      Selig wants everyone to move on because he doesn’t want his name to be synonymous with the steroid era. Well, too bad. He decided to turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to the problem over the past two decades and now he must pay for it.

      I think baseball is finally moving in the right direction by having stricter testing in place. But that doesn’t mean I think the steroid era is over and instead of trying to rush the process, Selig should come to grips with the fact that it’s going to take the game a long time to get clean again (if it ever does, that is). He wants everyone to just forget about what happen and move on, but true baseball fans can’t and won’t allow that to happen.

      Guys like Selig and McGwire need to slow down, take a step back and realize the magnitude of what they saying. They need to realize that fans are tired of having the covers pulled over their eyes and don’t want to be patronized with comments like, “the steroid era is over.” Because it’s not.

      MLB

      Canseco: McGwire is still lying

      January 13, 2010 /

      Jose Canseco says that his former bash brother Mark McGwire is still lying about his use of steroids.

      From SI.com:

      “I’ve defended Mark, I know a lot of good things about him,” Canseco told ESPN 1000 radio in Chicago on Tuesday. “I can’t believe he just called me a a liar. Umm, there’s something very strange going on here.

      “I even polygraphed that I injected him, and I passed it completely. So I want to challenge him on national TV to a polygraph examination. I want to see him call me a liar under a polygraph examination.”

      In Canseco’s 2005 book, “Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant ‘Roids, Smash Hits, and How Baseball Got Big,” Canseco claimed he introduced McGwire and other stars to steroids and performance-enhancing drugs. He wrote about injecting himself and McGwire in bathroom stalls, and how the effects of the drugs were the reason he hit 462 career home runs.

      “Jose is out there doing what he’s doing, but I’m not going to stoop down to his level,” McGwire told ESPN on Tuesday. “None of that stuff happened. He knows it. I know it. I’m not going to stoop down to that level.”

      What chaps my hide most about McGwire is that he admitted taking steroids, yet he had the nuggets to tell everyone that they didn’t help make him a better hitter. That’s a flat out lie and he knows it. He didn’t take steroids to recover from injuries – he took them so he could hit 500-foot home runs and break records.

      Canseco has his own agenda when it comes to steroids in baseball, but I’ll believe him over anything McGwire says. At least when Canseco finally admitted that he juiced, he confessed everything – unlike McGwire, who would have us believe that he only used them to help bounce back from injuries.

      Give me a break.

      MLB

      Should we be thanking Jose Canseco?

      January 12, 2010 /

      Mark McGwire admitted something on Monday that every sensible sports fan already knew: He took steroids. He’s sorry and in time we’ll forgive him, just like we’ve forgiven Andy Pettitte and even Alex Rodriguez for coming clean.

      What’s interesting is that we’ll forgive those that admit taking steroids, just as long as their names aren’t Jose Canseco.

      You remember Jose Canseco right? He was the guy that helped (I say “helped” because Ken Caminiti had a hand in it too) bring the steroid era to light in 2005 with his book entitled, “Juiced.” He was one of the first to come clean about taking steroids and he’s offered full disclosure on the topic since then.

      When his book was published, we called Canseco a snitch and a media whore who was only looking for his 15 minutes of fame and a wad of cash. And guess what? He was all of those things. The guy was willing to name names for a price and is so egotistical that he calls himself the godfather of the steroid era, yet also makes himself out to be a pariah for bringing the topic to light. He claims he wanted to save baseball and that’s why he wrote the book, yet he was a big reason that the game needed to be saved in the first place.

      Continue reading »

      Barstool Debates, MLB

      McGwire officially admits to using steroids

      January 11, 2010 /

      Here’s a shocker: Mark McGwire used steroids during his career.

      From MLB.com:

      “Now that I have become the hitting coach for the St. Louis Cardinals, I have the chance to do something that I wish I was able to do five years ago.

      “I never knew when, but I always knew this day would come. It’s time for me to talk about the past and to confirm what people have suspected. I used steroids during my playing career and I apologize. I remember trying steroids very briefly in the 1989/1990 off season and then after I was injured in 1993, I used steroids again. I used them on occasion throughout the nineties, including during the 1998 season.

      “I wish I had never touched steroids. It was foolish and it was a mistake. I truly apologize. Looking back, I wish I had never played during the steroid era.

      “During the mid-90s, I went on the DL seven times and missed 228 games over five years. I experienced a lot of injuries, including a rib cage strain, a torn left heel muscle, a stress fracture of the left heel, and a torn right heel muscle. It was definitely a miserable bunch of years and I told myself that steroids could help me recover faster. I thought they would help me heal and prevent injuries too.

      You can read McGwire’s full statement here.

      Better late than never I guess, although he would have been better admitting all of this from the start instead of lying. I also find it a little humorous that he took a page out of the Andy Pettitte book of coming clean about steroids and saying he used the drugs to recover from injuries. I guess all the big muscles and home runs were just icing on the cake, huh?

      Big Mac has been hiding under a rock for the better part of a decade, so before he stepped back into the public eye I suppose he had no choice but to come clean. Considering the media will surround him on a nightly basis during the season, he was bound to field questions about his involvement with steroids. So instead of denying the allegations for an entire season, he was better off admitting everything up front and starting his new career off on the right foot.

      The ball is now in Barry Bonds’ court. The only hitters in the modern era to pass 61 home runs have all either admitted using steroids or are linked to performance-enhancing drugs and their masking agents. So are any of us to believe that Bonds hit 73 dingers on God-given talent? Don’t think so.

      It’s good that another player came clean about his use of steroids, but I think it’ll be a cold day in hell before Bonds every admits to any wrongdoing.

      MLB

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